With Russian agent networks destroyed and HUMINT capacity lost following mass expulsion of Russian diplomats, on the one hand, the Western environment has become more favorable for espionage and influence operations, as Moscow intelligence fell into decline.
That set the stage for the Iron Curtain that is needed to be restored, as we noted in June 2021, amid high activity by Russian intelligence. Crisis in Russian intelligence, on the other hand, makes it turn more and more to Soviet practice, when the KGB used foreign crime groups for a wide variety of tasks.
Russian intelligence exploits British gangs to chase people in the country, the Times reported citing the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) head Graeme Biggar. Intelligence reports say Russia has started using gangs as proxies.
He believes Russia pays criminals in Britain to harass people, often posing a threat to life.
That means Russia echoes the tactics of using terrorist groups to target opponents, as The Soviet Bloc Role in International Terrorism and Revolutionary Violence report of 1985 by CIA says. This practice is known starting from 1964, when KGB officer Kolosov developed a relationship of trust with Sicilian mafia boss Nicola Gentile. Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) published in 2014 the findings saying that a lot of thieves’ gangs in the country are supervised by ex-Soviet security officials, including those from KGB. The bulk of them are Russia and Eurasia gangs, consisting of Russian migrants.
The Czech Security Information Service noted in its 2011 Annual Report, that “Contacts of officers of Russian intelligence services with persons whose past is associated with Russian-language organized criminal structures and their activities in the Czech Republic are somewhat disturbing”. Given that modern Russia is a state in which every aspect of society is considered open to being co-opted by the regime, it was inevitable that this co-optation would also extend to the use of RBOC by the intelligence agencies.
Russian intelligence has contacts with foreign gangs as it also takes part in international drug trafficking and controls heroin and cocaine supplies to Europe.
Read also: Afghan heroin trafficking and control
Gangs are used in a similar way for influence operations in Mitrovica, as we see, where Belgrade and Moscow exploit Serbian-linked gangs to destabilize Kosovo.
Political scientist Mark Galeotti also pointed to active cooperation by the Kremlin and gangs abroad. In his 2017 study, he described various areas of “cooperation” by the Russian government and crime groups. Russian gangsters like camouflaging themselves behind legal business in places where lots of Russians live. This allows them to use local crime groups more effectively.
Russian intelligence will most probably intensify cooperation with gangs in other European nations: Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras.
We believe the Kremlin will just use gangs more and more often, that is why we should pay more attention to what Russian diaspora is doing in Europe.
Gangs can be used for:
• Money laundering.
• Getting income from illegal activity (selling drugs, cybercrimes), like North Korean Office 39).
• Sabotage operations, contract murders, persecution of dissidents. While some of these murders appear to be the handiwork of government assassins, others seem to have been subcontracted to Russian-based organized crime groups, especially groups from the North Caucasus themselves or with links to Chechnya. For example, Nadim Ayupov, one of the killers of three alleged Chechen terrorists in Istanbul, was a member of a Moscow-based organized crime group, which had, until then, specialized in car theft. The Turkish authorities believe them to have been engaged by the FSB.
• Surveillance. In Germany, for example, it has been suggested that Russian-based organized crime groups have conducted simple surveillance, and were used to deliver or collect materials or messages (such as by leaving markings on a particular post box or the like). • Purchases and supplies of sanctioned goods to Russia.
